Bunnahabhain 38 Year Old (D.1960, B.1999) Old Malt Cask / 43.6% / 0.7

Bunnahabhain Distillery is based in the north of Islay, near Port Askaig.

Its name translates from Gaelic to “river mouth” (the Margadale stream flows a few hundred metres from the distillery). Since 2003, the distillery has been owned by Burn Stewart Distilleries, which bought it from the Edrington Group, along with the Black Bottle brand, for £10 million (10 years later, Burn Stewart’s assets were taken over by the Distell Group from South Africa). Year by year, the Bunnahabhain single malt has been gaining in popularity and prestige. The edition presented here contains whisky distilled in December 1960, aged in a sherry cask for almost four decades and bottled in November 1999 by Douglas Laing & Co. in the popular Old Malt Cask series. The edition consisted of 194 bottles.

Nose: lots of sherry, old leather-bound books, herbal mixture, raisins, dried plums, roasted chestnuts, mint chocolate, tobacco leaves, forest floor, oak and traces of peat.

Palate : sweet and spicy, raisins, black cherries, plums, chocolate truffles, toffee, dark chocolate, black pepper, dried herbs, tobacco, leather and peat smoke in the background.

Finish : very long, with notes of dark chocolate, coffee, pepper, dried herbs, leather, tobacco, oak, sherry and peat smoke.